Couldn't tell you much about the the mercs. As for the clans depends on your play style as they play pretty different. The base game includes rules for all the clans plus the shrine teams which aren't much different from the other shrine teams. Shrine teams are good for beginners getting an understanding of the game.

Yeah, playing non-league games to start using the shrine teams is a good way to find your preferred play style. After that, you can apply that style to the clans in the rulebook (the clans are 100% complete in the book, nothing is missing) and see what clans fit your style. You can even use shrine clans as a proxy to test them out, for the most part (oni are large based minis that don't have a shrine clan equivalent).

Ronin are pretty much the same. The ones that fit your style, cover gaps in your clan, or reinforce strengths can all be good in different ways. Without getting too picky on it, for the most part the in-game cost of the ronin pretty well reflects their ability. Even if that ability may be situational. So, expensive ronin with high upkeep are going to be better than cheaper ronin with lower upkeep. But they won't all be equal in the same situations. The ronin in the book are not _all_ the ronin. But it is a huge percentage of them. Off the top of my head, I think only 4-6 of the ronin from the kickstarter were not in the book and the book doesn't have the 6 promotional elemental hanzo stats. Other than that, it's also very near complete.

Thanks for the replies. I've played a lot of games before where there were guys that were way better than others and just wanted to be sure i didn't get a 'dud'. I have to admit, after seen DT with Tom Vassal, I was unsure about the game. Still am. But I do love the minis, especially since they are based off of actual Japanese myth/history.

Thanks for the replies. I've played a lot of games before where there were guys that were way better than others and just wanted to be sure i didn't get a 'dud'. I have to admit, after seen DT with Tom Vassal, I was unsure about the game. Still am. But I do love the minis, especially since they are based off of actual Japanese myth/history.

I admit bias here, but, his review was very poor on this game. It really smacked of him having decided it was a bad game before playing and getting hung up on the first thing he could find that he didn't like, using that as justification and never moving past that. I find this game to be one of my favorite things coming out of ninja division at the moment. Most folks (like myself) who were or are Blood Bowl players tend to like this game more than not. But the best thing to do, given the chance, is to make up your own mind on it. Luckily the core game does provide enough tools to get a very good picture of the full game and makes buying the peripherals and extras a very narrowly focusable prospect. Much like Blood Bowl, it's not uncommon for players to buy their own teams/ronin to play, instead of just one person having everything. Only one person (usually a league runner) will even need the core game.